Brighter than the Sun @zamanthasee-blog - Tumblr Blog

U r Loved, Today And Every Day

Sometimes I wonder how we got here. How humans came to be, with their different eye shapes and hairstyles, different colors and builds, different smiles and sounds of their laughs. It’s crazy to think that there have been so many worlds before us, so many people in existence long before the thought of us even crossed our parents’ minds. It’s crazy to think we are all different—millions of fingerprints and wrinkles and birthmarks and scars—but no other exactly the same.

Sometimes I think about what has happened in my life: the people I’ve met, the paths that have crossed with mine, the souls I’ve loved and learned, the way situations have played out. I think about my blessings, about the laughter, about the hardest moments that transformed into beautiful lessons over time.

And I think about how—our creation, our existence, our world—came to be because of a God so much greater than I can even imagine. A God who loves me, loves us, loves you, more than you could ever comprehend.

I know Christianity doesn’t sit well with everyone. I know sometimes it’s scary, or weird, to imagine that we were created by something bigger than ourselves—I get that fear. And I don’t intend to be the person that shoves my religion down anyone’s throat. But isn’t it beautiful to know that you are one in a world of millions and millions? Isn’t it beautiful to know you were created in your uniqueness and glory, in your wonder and individuality, in your grace and strength, in the image of God?

Isn’t it beautiful to know that you’re imperfect, but loved anyways, no matter what, every single day?

If I could explain Christianity in the biggest, but bite-sized way, it would be this: That a loving, powerful God created you. He created you in a world where you could make your own decisions, where you could have free will in an imperfect world that could, and would, draw you away from Him. But He didn’t want to lose you. So He sent His perfect Son to die for you, to wipe your slate clean, to forgive you and bring you back to Him.

And that is where you are right now—saved, if you choose to accept Him.

And loved, no matter what happens, no matter what pulls you away, no matter how far you wander. You are loved, even when you do not love Him. Loved, even when you feel you are alone and forgotten. Loved, even, and especially when you are broken. Loved, regardless of what you wedge between yourself and Him.

So I want you to know that. I want you to know that you could be having the worst day/month/year of your life, but still be cared for by God. I want you to know that you could have done the most terrible thing, but still be forgiven by God. I want you to know that you could have lost it all—family, friends, significant other/spouse, job, finances, self—and He will be there to stand beside you, pick you up, and help you begin again.

Our God is a powerful God, a merciful God, a loving God. He is a God that created us, that created this life, that gave us a choice of whether or not to seek Him.

And I hope you seek Him today. I hope you seek Him every day.

I hope you know that you are loved by Him, and in the moments where you feel lost, in the moments where you don’t want to live anymore, in the moments where you’ve given up on love, in the moments where your heart is broken—He is there. He is always there.

So maybe you’re like me, and sometimes wonder about how we got here. You sometimes wonder about this life and how we came to be, how people come into our lives, how situations occur, how all this beautiful mess happened around us and to us.

Maybe you wonder about the people you’ve loved. Maybe you wonder about your purpose or the big, overarching ‘why’ question—why am I here? Maybe sometimes you feel lost or scared, broken or tired. Maybe you’re like me, looking at all the world and its chaos, and realizing that there has to be something bigger that created us, that made us so unique and wonderfully flawed.

Maybe you see all that has happened to you has shaped you, both the good and the bad.

And maybe you see that there is a God who created you, who is seeking you, who loves you. And I hope, if and when you seek Him back, you know He loves you. And will never stop loving you, no matter what.

Guard Your Heart

The difference between me and some is that, I’m aware of my feelings, and I know what to do with them.

God said that we should guard our heart, for it determines the course of our lives (Proverbs 4:3). And it’s true; we should deeply engrave it in us, to protect our hearts. Once, I told myself that, “Just this time, I’ll let my heart make the decision. Just this time, for my own happiness’ sake.” That time, is the time I started destroying myself.

I thought that love is a feeling, it’s magic! The butterflies in my stomach felt so great, and I felt so complete, to be loved by someone. I thought I fell in love, for the first time, so I assumed that it is God’s will. I made my own “God’s will”. I placed my faith in my hands. Why not? The person is not rude, he’s a gentleman. He’s a Christian, he led people to God, he served in the church consistently, he’s almost-perfect in my own eyes. That I failed to see through God’s perspective.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief. Sometimes, we think that we are right, but we’ll fail. When I was a kid, I swore to God that I’ll love and serve Him for the rest of my life, and I broke that promise. I placed someone on His throne, I placed myself. If I’ll have a regret, it’s that I depended on my feelings. Funny thing, when I entered the relationship, I know in myself that everything will go wrong. I even told God that “I will accept the pain in the future, because I’m feeling happy now.” But I was unable to. The God that I left behind was also the only one who was able to revive me.

Why should we guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:3)? Because, the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Jeremiah 17:9. My heart failed me once, and I’m not open for a repeat. So, I guard it, I don’t depend on it anymore. I place it on God’s feet. “Heart, beat only for God.”

I learned the hard way, and for the sake of my beloved girls, I write this, and also to the people who wanted to feel love from others. So that, you’ll be able to distinguish what really is love, and what is not.

My dad always told me, that love is not a feeling, it’s a decision. Feelings make you fall, love will raise you up. Feelings will push us to rush things, and cause destruction. Love teaches us to be patient, and wait for God’s timing. Feelings depends on the hypothalamus, a small part of the brain. Love, depends on the Spirit of God, in His wisdom. Because we can’t make a wise decision without God’s wisdom.

Actually, feelings do change. God don’t. What caused me pain, when I realized my wrongs, was not that I failed, and I was hurt, it is that, I thought I loved God so much, but still, I was able to trade Him for someone else. Now that He has already mended me, I, again, swore to be His servant. And this time, I won’t let my heart enslave me again. For the love this world offers, is nothing compared to His love.

Let me be part of you

God will show me that He's by my side through my every heartbeat

Something Even Better Is Coming

God is a merciful God.

I think we sometimes forget that when we get wrapped up in the pain we’re experiencing, the people we’ve lost, and the things we don’t yet have. We focus our attention on the ways that God hasn’t measured up to our human standards and we find ourselves disappointed.

We see what He hasn’t done for us instead of the many blessings we’ve been given.

And sadly, that’s natural sometimes. That’s human. But it doesn’t mean that we’re right. It doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us or that He isn’t true to His promises.

It just means that what He wants for us is in His time. Not ours.

It’s so common to pray in our hard moments, to lean on God when things are spinning out of control and ask for some kind of guidance, some sense of direction, some idea of what to do or what path to head down.

I know in my toughest times I’ve reached out to God, hoping for a clear answer. I’ve prayed, looking specifically for my prayers to be granted rather than for Him to mold my life to His will.

I’ve asked Him to please bring people back to my life, to heal the suffering of someone I love, or to allow something great to happen to me. It becomes almost a test. I rationalize with Him, saying that if He will grant my prayer, then I will promise to have a stronger faith or promise to always do the right thing. I make wagers with God sometimes—but that’s not how this works.

Prayer is the outward action of my faith, yet I sometimes don’t have faith when I pray. I have expectations.

Sometimes I’ve prayed so hard for something and felt utterly defeated when I didn’t get what I wanted. But weeks, months, years later I see that if I would have been given that thing I wanted, I would have lost out on something even bigger and better. Something I didn’t even know I needed.

Because God has bigger plans.

I’ve prayed for love to come into my life at a certain time, but if God would have given me love, I wouldn’t have become stronger and more independent. If things would have fallen into place at the college I prayed for, I wouldn’t have attended the school that shaped so many of my future friendships and dreams.

God listens to every prayer. He hears every word that we whisper from our lips; He knows our thoughts and even our hearts. And He listens. But just because He isn’t granting our prayers in the way we want Him to doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us.

Here’s the thing: I don’t have an explanation for why things are imperfect or why we can’t always have a pain-free life. I don’t know why God doesn’t give us things we want right away or why He doesn’t always take the suffering away from the ones we love. But what I do know is that we are sinful people, yet He loves us. And He wants us to really have faith in Him, to lean on Him when times are good and bad. Maybe that’s why hard things happen to us—so that we grow in faith.

God loves us so deeply. Even when He doesn’t answer our prayers.

He has a bigger purpose and over-arching will for our lives that doesn’t always line up with what we want. But He knows better. He knows not only the biggest hopes in our hearts, but what’s to come in our lives and how it will bless us, strengthen us.

And sometimes He doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we want Him to because He’s sheltering us from pain.

Sometimes it looks like He doesn’t love us, when really He’s granting us the biggest gift. A gift that we won’t realize the weight of until much time has passed and we’re already bitter at Him for supposedly abandoning us in our time of need.

Trust me, I get it. I know how hard it can be when you hope and pray and wish for something to change in your life, for something to fall into place, for things to just make sense and it doesn’t. I know the ache of not getting what you feel you desperately need.

But know this: Maybe your unanswered prayer is God giving you something better than you ever imagined.

You just have to have faith in Him, in His promises.

“The Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”

—Deuteronomy 31:6

That is His promise—to stand by us, in pain and in peace. He’s not going anywhere. So please trust Him, even when it feels like your prayers are floating into nothingness, even when it feels like He’s not listening.

He is.

He just knows what we need. And He will show us in time.

Wherever He May Lead You

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

— John 8:12 (NIV)

Being a Christian means having faith. Faith in the unknown. Faith in the unseen. Faith in the confusing. And faith when it counts.

Sometimes God leads us believers in strange directions. He commands us to change the life we are living, to challenge those around us, to be called to a certain place or a certain decision that we might not typically make on our own.

We get this strange feeling stirring in the deepest parts of our soul. We feel a weird, unexplainable urge to do something, sometimes something that makes absolutely no sense, yet we have this strong desire to do it—that’s God calling to our hearts.

And we must answer.

God wants us to be pushed out of our comfort zones. He wants to bring us into the direction of following Him, even when (and especially when) that isn’t what the world around us is doing.

Sometimes that means engaging a friend, a family member, a coworker into a conversation about Him. Sometimes that means being a more outward symbol of faith. Sometimes that can be something big, like changing your entire life to be more devoted to Him, going on a mission trip, moving to a different place to bless it with His word, or even something as big as sponsoring someone in need, or adopting a child that so desperately wishes for a family.

God’s plan is sometimes crazy.

He sometimes asks us to do things that make non-believers wrinkle their noses, roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders in disbelief. He calls us to change our lives in ways that doesn’t make sense. But that’s the whole point.

His plan is not our plan. And He calls us to follow Him, and to have faith.

”Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

— Galatians 5:25 (NIV)

When we are called to do something by God, we must trust in Him. And we must do it. We must put aside our fears and doubts, our negativity and the negativity of others and trust in something greater than ourselves, no matter where this may lead.

We must walk in His light and His spirit. We must trust that He will bring us where we are meant to be.

We must not be afraid of what the world is thinking, must not be afraid of what we look like or if we are making the right decision. We must trust that God always has our best interests in mind, and though we will definitely face pain and hardship, He will forever stand by our side.

We must have faith in His plan, a plan that doesn’t always make sense to our human standards, but a plan that is meant to serve others, serve Him, and bless the world around us.

”Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

— Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)

He won’t ever leave us or lead us astray. He loves each and every one of us, His creation.

And if you find that He is calling you, trust Him.

His plan will change your entire life, but it will be good because He is good. This I promise.

#MoreThanWonderful

Dad's favorite. :)

Random.

To one of my favorite people in the world Paolo Carganilla @callmepaolo, i wish nothing but the best. Happy happy birthday bebe ko. Young enough uh. Hehe. Bente uno na magkasama pa din tayo. Tama ba? Hahaha. Though distance keeps us from meeting too often but God meant us to have that special bond. Clingy eh. So ayun, alam mo naman kung gaano kita ka-love. From head to toe. From the inside and out. Sa mga kalokohan and late nights with tropas. At sa theme song natin na nagagawa natin ng live mtv. From the bottom of my heart, may all your prayers do come true. May all your days be a good one. Ingat ka palage. Godbless! Love love ❤️🙌🎊🎉🍻

Relaxed. Thank you, Lord. ☝😍

kimpoyfeliciano

"2 centuries-old Bohol churches devastated by 7.2 magnitude earthquake"

Loboc Church and Baclayon Church, two of the oldest churches in the Philippines, were heavily damaged on Tuesday after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the province.

The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) Central Visayas over Twitter said, “The century old church in Baclayon is heavily damaged according to Jun Dy of comm rescue group in Bohol.”

Pictures of Baclayon Church circulating online showed the half-collapsed bell tower.

Meanwhile, Loboc Church has been trending on Twitter after netizens posted photos showing the church’s front façade completely destroyed. Parts of its roof can also be seen in front of the structure.

The first structure in the Baclayon Church compound was built back in1595 while the church’s building was from 1727. Its museum features relics dating back to the early 16th century.

Meanwhile, Loboc Church is the second oldest church in Bohol rebuilt in 1638 after a fire gutted its original structure.

It is located near the famous Loboc River and both have become major tourist attractions for the province. #PrayForVisayas